Technology has changed communication as a whole. The world’s culture is constantly changing, some are minor, some are major; technology has had a major change in our world’s culture. The way we communicate, participate, and share, has changed on a global level. I believe that the major change in technology isn’t how we communicate and participate, but how we view others. The way we communicate with others is based on our perspective of them, and technology has majorly changed that. For example, in Michael Wesch’s Youtube video An anthropological approach to YouTube, the video of Gary Browsma dancing demonstrates this idea. Wesch talks about how the video creates a new way of participation, which is true but before others participate, they see the video. Viewers see a new perspective of a man they do not know, who is loving the song and dancing in his own home, his own space. This is a new perspective of the man, a fun perspective. Viewers then associate the dancing and song with joy, then they feel the need to participate to have fun and feel the same joy of Gary Browsma in the video.
Although Wesch’s Youtube video is from sixteen years ago, the same still applies today, sixteen years later. Influencers, celebrities, and even just regular, run of the mill people, only post what they want you to see. Everything on social media is filtered by the one who posts the content, there are few flaws because they don’t let you see them. Which arises a different problem of expectations on people, which will and is affecting classrooms.
There is a new culture of participation, because people can participate from home, or in a comfortable environment where they can filter what others can see. In a classroom, this does not apply. Unfortunate as it is, not all students are comfortable in their classrooms, as such they don’t want to be viewed or participate. In my future classroom, technology would need to be used in a participating and productive way. Technology can be distracting in the classroom, there needs to be a balance of how much technology we are using. Which is much easier said than done obviously, but eventually technology will be banned because of how distracting it can be. Which has already happened! Students can no longer bring their phones into the classroom because of how distracting it is.
School needs to be reexamined as our culture is changing, school needs to change with society for it to be effective. Priorities in the world have changed, but priorities in school have not. Which to me, doesn’t make any sense, how can we be educating the next generation for a society that doesn’t exist anymore. Technology can be harmful, distracting, and catastrophic or it could be educating, helpful, and safe. We need to implement technology into the curriculum and into school. Technology has become a regular part of everyone’s everyday life, it is unavoidable.
Instead of trying to turn away technology and accept it. We need to accept that children are going to have their phones, they are going to get distracted no matter what, if there is technology or not. We need to keep moving forward instead of trying to stay in the past.
I totally agree that everything online is filtered and altered by the people who are posting it. People only want to put their best foot forward and show the good and wonderful in their lives. While that is not always a bad thing, we need to remind our students, and ourselves, that those versions of people are not realistic or are not showing the full picture. The critical thinking and researching skills that can come out of questioning everything we see online can help students to be able to recognize and dissect all of the misinformation and disinformation they come across online. If kids are going to survive the internet, they absolutely need this skill, because, as you said, the internet is here to stay. It is only going to become more and more prevalent in our lives.